More recent WWE fans might not realize that it was only a few short years ago that Daniel Bryan was a hated heel, a sniveling villain who verbally berated his girlfriend, AJ Lee. But one thing that never really changed throughout his career was that he was viewed as an undersized underdog. After Bryan won the Smackdown briefcase at the 2011 Money in the Bank PPV, he began a quest to defeat World Heavyweight Champion Mark Henry without using the briefcase (which he said he wanted to cash in at WrestleMania). Henry was able to fend off Bryan, but in November 2011, Big Show knocked the Worlds Strongest Man out on Smackdown, and Bryan cashed in. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QhkNEZf7MJ0 His victory would be short-lived, as Smackdown GM Theodore Long declared the match void because Henry was not medically cleared to compete (and possibly because he wanted to make a tag team match, playa). Thus, Bryans cash-in was nullified and the title went back to Henry. Bryan would eventually use the briefcase a few weeks later on a groggy Big Show at TLC, ending his WHC title reign at 45 seconds.
Scott is a former journalist and longtime wrestling fan who was smart enough to abandon WCW during the Monday Night Wars the same time as the Radicalz. He fondly remembers watching WrestleMania III, IV, V and VI and Saturday Night's Main Event, came back to wrestling during the Attitude Era, and has been a consumer of sports entertainment since then. He's written for WhatCulture for more than a decade, establishing the Ups and Downs articles for WWE Raw and WWE PPVs/PLEs and composing pieces on a variety of topics.
